The Smoking Hourglass

by Jennifer Bell

  Suddenly a shout rose up from the street outside, making the bedroom walls shake. Ivy hurried over to the window. A shiny black 4x4 with huge silver tyres was parked in the middle of the road, its engine rumbling. Stern-faced underguards stood at each wheel, scanning the traders with their beady eyes. Everyone had fallen silent.

  Ivy wondered if the 4x4 was one of the improvements Selena Grimes had announced; the last time Ivy was in Lundinor the underguards had been using horse-drawn funeral carriages.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Judy asked, joining Ivy at the window. Seb held the curtain back as Valian craned his neck over Ivy’s shoulder.

  ‘I think they’re arresting someone,’ Ivy said. Three underguard constables were escorting a man across the street towards the vehicle. He was floating with his head down, his hands tied behind his back. Dead – a ghoul, possibly. Ivy couldn’t be sure.

  Further down the road a woman called after him, her voice raw with emotion. ‘He’s innocent!’ she cried. ‘He don’t know nothing about what happened to the memorial. None of us do!’

  Ivy realized that the woman was dead too: parts of her body were so transparent you could see straight through her to the street behind. A crowd of traders had gathered to view the spectacle, muttering among themselves.

  ‘This shouldn’t be happening,’ Judy said with a stamp of her foot. ‘It’s like the stories my nan told me about when she was growing up and the Fallen Guild were active. You didn’t trust no one, she said. Your best friend was a suspect, especially if ’e was dead.’ She shook her head. ‘I hope they don’t take him to the Skaptikon.’

  ‘This … Skaptikon place,’ Ivy said – the spikiness of the word had made it stick in her head. ‘What is it?’

  Valian shivered. ‘The worst place on earth, apparently. After the Dirge disappeared, the IUC – the International Uncommon Council – were terrified that they might return. They built the Skaptikon to imprison everyone who had served the Dirge.’

  ‘Skaptikon means “a thousand stairs”,’ Judy added. ‘Some say it’s a maze that makes you mad, or a hole that goes down into the centre of the earth. Others talk about a place so treacherous it doesn’t need walls to keep prisoners in. No one – dead or living – has ever escaped from it.’

  ‘Right.’ Seb nodded. ‘Worst place on earth sounds about right then.’

  And Selena Grimes is using it somehow, Ivy thought with a sinking feeling.

  They stepped away from the window, the atmosphere in the room decidedly downcast now. Judy turned for the door. ‘I’d better get on with the ne—’ She stopped before she could finish. Slowly she pushed the door open a crack and peeped through the gap. ‘Bother,’ she snapped. ‘It’s Smokehart. He’s searching the rooms for suspects, no doubt.’

  Ivy closed her satchel. If Smokehart found that book with the smoking hourglass on it, it would be all the evidence he needed to arrest her for being the graffiti murderer.

  Valian dropped to his knees and snatched the Great Uncommon Bag from under the bed. ‘He mustn’t find this either,’ he told Ivy. ‘And your family history doesn’t exactly put you in a positive light. We all have to leave here. Now.’

  ‘This way,’ Judy whispered. She slipped out onto the landing and stuck her head back round the door. ‘All clear. Follow me.’

  Ivy’s pulse was racing as she secured her satchel across her body. Out in the hallway, the walls trembled with the slamming of doors and the stomp of heavy boots. The sound of Smokehart’s voice reverberated down the corridor.

  Judy escorted them to a narrow room just off the landing. Inside, several sets of flying salad tongs were beating the dirt from wet bedsheets, dunking the fabric in troughs of green liquid. The air was thick with the smell of laundry detergent, but the green solution was emitting sounds of howling wind and heavy rain, as if there was a storm inside.

  ‘If Smokehart’s got the stairs covered, this is the only exit,’ Judy told them, opening a window in the far wall. She climbed on top of the sill, throwing her legs over the side. ‘You’ll need this to cushion your landing; it’s a long way down.’ She fished a bar of soap out of her apron pocket and rubbed it onto the wheels of her roller skates. It made a squealing noise as she did so. ‘See you on the ground!’

  ‘Wait!’ Ivy reached forward as Judy cheerily pushed herself off the ledge.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Valian said into her ear. ‘Clean as a whistle, softer than velvet – that’s uncommon soap for you.’

  Sure enough, there was an explosion of little popping noises as Judy landed in the yard.

  With Valian’s encouragement, Ivy took the soap from the window ledge and began brushing it onto the soles of her shoes. Bubbles appeared around the toes and up behind her heel. Touching one experimentally, her finger rebounded, as if the bubble was made of rubber.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Seb said, checking over his shoulder.

  Ivy threw him the soap before climbing onto the windowsill. It was a good four metres’ drop, but she was focused on escaping from Smokehart. She pushed herself off and bent her legs when she hit the ground. The bubbles on her shoes popped, absorbing all the impact. It felt like she’d landed on a giant bouncy castle.

  ‘Over here!’ Judy called. She pulled Ivy behind a wooden rack filled with barrels of Hundred Punch. Seb and Valian were soon squashed up beside them.

  ‘It’s locked,’ Valian groaned, trying the handle of the gate behind.

  Ivy looked up. The fence surrounding the yard was topped with barbed wire; there was no way they’d be able to climb over. They heard the moan of furniture being dragged across a landing. Ivy spotted a black cloak flashing past the third-floor window.

  With a dull thud, the back door that led from the dining room flew open and a pale-faced figure dressed in black stepped into the yard. Ivy tensed.

  Inspector Smokehart scanned the area slowly with his dark glasses.

  ‘Sir?’ came a voice over his shoulder.

  He twisted round. Half a dozen underguard constables stood fixed to the spot behind him, awaiting instructions.

  ‘Search every room,’ he growled. ‘There is evidence somewhere. That symbol didn’t just appear on the memorial by itself.’ The men dispersed, their cloaks thrashing around like a cloud of bats. Smokehart came further into the yard, sniffed, then rubbed the toe of his boot into the soap residue on the ground. The laundry-room window was hanging open above him …

  Shouts sounded from upstairs. The inspector scowled and swiftly returned inside. Ivy puffed out a sigh of relief.

  ‘Mr Littlefair has the keys,’ Judy whispered, pointing at the gate.

  Ivy peered through into the dining room of the inn. It looked nothing like it had the last time she’d seen it. The holly wreaths had been replaced by daisy chains, and now the long wooden tables were covered in white lace cloths and vases of daffodils.

  She spotted Mr Littlefair behind the bar, pouring Hundred Punch. A man and a woman wearing yellow hard hats and flowery hakamas perused the menu in front of them. Ivy tuned in to their conversation.

  ‘… Dragon’s Breath Ale,’ she caught the man saying. ‘It’s meant to be amazing!’

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t serve that here.’ Mr Littlefair sounded exasperated. ‘How about Hundred Punch? A hundred flavours, a hundred ways to make you smile!’

  The lady raised her eyebrows. ‘They serve Dragon’s Breath at Brewster’s across the road. Can’t you make it for us too?’

  Mr Littlefair ran a hand through his thinning grey hair. Ivy didn’t think she’d ever seen him looking so tired. ‘No,’ he said in a tight voice. ‘It’s their own secret recipe – just like Hundred Punch is mine.’

  With a sigh, he tucked a rubbish bag under his arm and headed towards the back door. He stared at the barrel of Hundred Punch that was right by Ivy’s head. His brow crinkled. ‘If you’re trying to steal from the kitchen,’ he said in a taut voice, ‘then you picked a bad day. There are Ugs everywhere.’

  Slowly they all cre
pt out from behind the storage rack.

  Mr Littlefair raised his eyebrows. ‘Ivy? Seb! What are you doing here?’

  ‘We had to hide,’ Ivy explained. She couldn’t tell him the truth about the Great Uncommon Bag, so she told him the next best reason. ‘Smokehart hates us. He would have found a way to have us arrested.’

  Mr Littlefair checked over his shoulder. The doorway was still empty. ‘I’ll let you out the back. Judy, you’d better get inside and try to calm the drinkers down. We could do without this, today of all days.’

  ‘Is everything OK?’ Ivy asked as Mr Littlefair pulled a bunch of keys out of his apron.

  He sighed. ‘It’s just this new place over the road – Brewster’s. It’s stealing all my business. Everyone wants this Dragon’s Breath stuff.’ He shook his head before pushing the gate open.

  Judy turned towards the inn. ‘You know, you lot might want to lie low at Brewster’s for a while. It’s the last place Smokehart’s gonna search.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Seb asked.

  Judy shrugged. ‘Because it’s the last place he actually did search. I heard some guests complaining about it ten minutes ago. Doubt he’ll go back anytime soon.’

  Mr Littlefair brightened, shooing them through the gate. ‘There we go then, you can hide in there. You’d be doing me a favour; I need someone to suss out the joint.’

  Out on the dusty Gauntlet, whatever voices Ivy might have sensed with her whispering were drowned by a flood of gossip. Squawks of ‘Murder!’ and ‘Skaptikon …’ echoed across the street, while murmurs of ‘Jack-in-the-Green … graffiti …’ drifted beneath the trees at the roadside. As the three of them headed across the road, an unfamiliar building came into view: a large cottage surrounded by benches and lush grass. Flame-coloured bunting hung between the gables, and a satin flag waved proudly from a pole on the lawn.

  ‘Brewster’s Alehouse,’ Seb read. ‘Come on – let’s get inside.’

  They entered among a whirlwind of other customers. In contrast to the bright fields of Lundinor, the interior – with its dark leather furniture and maroon walls – was gloomy and stifling. The air smelled of charcoal, as if there was an open fire somewhere, or even a barbecue.

  Ivy looked around for staff but could only see one man behind the bar in the centre of the room: a burly, broad-chested giant with a red beard that trailed down over his sizeable belly. It was the same man she’d seen entering the Timbermeal that very morning. His Hobsmatch consisted of a leather jerkin and soot-stained apron – a bit like an old-fashioned butcher’s.

  Valian spotted a space on the end of a large table, and the three of them headed over. Sitting at the other end was a group of men and women holding tankards filled with a gloopy black liquid. One of the men threw back his head and slugged down the drink. As he put his tankard down, he leaned forward, burped …

  And a fireball the size of his head erupted from his mouth before disappearing into thin air.

  Ivy leaned away as the heat reached her face. She studied the drinkers at the next table. Everyone was sampling the same thick dark liquid and then belching out fireballs. ‘Dragon’s Breath Ale – it must be.’

  Valian grabbed an empty tankard off the table and gave it a sniff. ‘Hmm. It’s weird: I’ve never heard of it before.’

  ‘Why’s that weird?’ Seb asked. ‘Are you some secret drinks expert?’

  ‘No, but anything made with mixology gets a lot of news coverage in Lundinor,’ he replied. ‘I would have heard of it.’

  Ivy wrinkled her nose. ‘Mixology?’

  Valian slid the tankard over so that she could take a sniff. It smelled like tar and chocolate. ‘Mixology’s the art of combining liquids using uncommon objects. People use it to develop uncommon inks, perfumes, paints, soups – the laundry detergent in the Cabbage Moon, the liquid shadow we used on that ship – anything you can pour, really. It takes a lifetime of experimenting to achieve the right formulas. Concoctions like Dragon’s Breath Ale don’t just pop out of nowhere. That’s why it’s weird.’

  ‘Looks like it has made the news,’ Seb said. ‘In the American undermarts, at least.’ He pointed to a wooden cabinet that was stuffed with framed newspaper clippings and photos of the burly, bearded man behind the bar, grinning. In the centre, in pride of place, hung a large poster-sized frame.

  It contained the front page of a newspaper, the Nubrook Observer, with the headline: To the left of the article was a smiling photo of the barman with his hand resting on a bubbling black cauldron.

  As Ivy finished reading, a boy with scruffy red hair and scorched eyebrows approached their table. A dirty apron – the strings wrapped twice around his skinny body – covered his simple Hobsmatch, and he was balancing several empty tankards in his arms.

  Alexander, Ivy remembered; Drummond Brewster’s son.

  ‘Hello,’ he said as he reached them. ‘What can I get you?’ There were dark circles under his eyes as if he’d been working round the clock. Ivy thought that was strange – he could only have been around her age.

  Seb leaned over and caught a tankard as it toppled out of the boy’s arms.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, rearranging his burden.

  Ivy stood up to help him. ‘Is there no one working with you?’

  Alexander shrugged. ‘My pa won’t allow it. He thinks if we get anyone to help, they’ll steal the secret Dragon’s Breath recipe.’

  Drummond’s gaze landed on the four of them and he shouted, ‘Boy, stop chatting!’ Ivy’s ribs shook, his voice was so powerful. ‘There’s a spillage,’ he boomed. ‘Get over here!’

  Alexander went pale. ‘S-sorry,’ he stuttered. ‘Gotta go.’

  Ivy watched him stumble away, clutching his tankards. When she turned back, Seb was flapping a hand in front of his eyes.

  ‘Why do featherlights always fly so close to my face?’ A pale blue feather zipped around his head like a paper plane. It swung from left to right, and then, tip down, it began to scribble a message in mid-air.

  ‘Well, we’re not far from the House of Bells,’ Seb said. ‘We don’t have to rush.’

  Ivy shot a look at the door, wondering if Smokehart and his band of underguards had moved on.

  Valian was drumming his fingers on the table, apparently oblivious. ‘I’ve been thinking … What if the reason no one recognizes the smoking hourglass symbol is that because it’s really, really old?’

  ‘Could be,’ Seb said. ‘But if so, how do we find out about it?’

  Ivy thought carefully. It was frustrating that uncommoners didn’t use the internet. She glanced at the framed newspaper cutting. ‘What about one of the newspapers? They must have offices in Lundinor. Maybe we could search through their archives to see if there’s any reference to the symbol in past issues.’

  Valian brightened. ‘That might work. There are two papers in Lundinor: the Lundinor Chronicle and the Barrow Post, but the Post is older. We should try there.’

  ‘Ivy’ – Seb rubbed his face – ‘that’s gonna take ages.’

  ‘Have you got any better ideas?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but the last time I went along with something I thought was a bad idea, I ended up having to eat toenails. Just saying.’

  Ivy sighed and was about to offer a reluctant apology when she felt Valian’s hand on the back of her head. ‘Duck!’

  She shielded her face as a man belched out another fireball.

  According to a local street bell, the Barrow Post headquarters was on the edge of Stationer’s Green in the Great Cavern.

  Ivy reached into her satchel for Farrow’s Guide – there was a map inside that she hoped would help them navigate.

  ‘We can’t waste time walking,’ Valian said, marching beside her. ‘We’re racing against Selena Grimes and Jack-in-the-Green; they don’t even sleep.’

  ‘And we’ve got to meet Granma in an hour,’ Seb reminded Ivy. ‘Can’t we just use the Great Uncommon Bag to get around?’

  Valian shook his head. �
��If anyone saw us using it, it’d look suspicious – other uncommon bags don’t work within the Great Gates. Somehow, the Great Uncommon Bag can break the rules without being detected. We need a sky stop. There …’ He pointed to the roadside, where traders were queueing beside a row of tall metal lockers. Peeking through the doors, Ivy spied various brooms, vacuum cleaners and rugs. A man lifted his leg over a vacuum cleaner, straddling it like a bicycle. The machine made a vroom noise as its engines started and it rose into the air.

  Seb groaned as the rider zoomed over his head. ‘Is there any way to get around that’s not going to make me feel sick?’

  They crossed the road, keeping a safe distance from the underguards’ black 4x4, still stationed outside the Cabbage Moon. Valian traded a feather with a young man wearing a khaki bomber jacket who was standing at the sky stop. Ivy imagined how momentous it would be to make her first Trade – like taking a step towards being a real uncommoner.

  The man in the bomber jacket turned, took two plastic dustpans out of a locker and passed them to Valian. He approached Ivy and Seb carrying a long-handled mop. ‘Your friend tells me that neither of you have a licence to ride on your own, so you’ll have to travel on the back with me.’ He threw a leg over the mop and indicated the space behind him.

  Valian slipped his shoes through a strap on each dustpan, so he was wearing them like slippers. ‘You’ll be able to use these eventually.’ As he extended his arms on either side, he lifted soundlessly into the air.

  Seb mumbled a complaint before swinging a leg over the mop, looking like the kid who had just been humiliated on sports day. Ivy took a seat in front of him.

  The mop made a smooth, vertical take-off. Seb squeezed Ivy’s shoulders, his fingernails digging in. ‘When will this be over?’

  ‘Try not to think about it,’ she told him. ‘Valian’s right – we’re up against people who can walk through walls; we have to take the fastest route.’

  She peered down as the thatched roofs of Lundinor shrank below her; a patchwork quilt of fields rolled off into the distance. She could see uncommoners below: families going in and out of shops, children tumbling down hills and picnicking on the grass. Three times a year, when the undermart opened, this was their life.